Will the CFL allow two ‘Riders teams now? Probably not

By Bill Mann

The Canadian Football League is facing a problem that would be unthinkable in the NFL, its American counterpart: The possibility of two teams sharing the same nickname. Again. And in a nine-team league, no less. How many Roughriders/Rough Riders will the CFL have in the future? Probably only one this time.

Can you imagine two 49′ers? Two Packers? Or two Jets? Neither can I.

The pro football season in Canada has been underway for a month, even before NFL teams open their training camps. Canada’s Super Bowl, the Grey Cup, takes place the end of November — hopefully in time to dodge a major snowfall for the game in subarctic Edmonton.

(I watched a Grey Cup one year that was held in a blizzard, and you could barely see the players. One sportswriter quipped at the time, “The only reason they didn’t have the game at the summit of Mt. Everest is because it was already booked”).

It was recently announced that Ottawa will re-join the eight-team pro league in 2013. The Ottawa Rough Riders (two words), long-time CFL members, folded in 1996. The nation’s capital had gotten an NHL team to distract fans in this hockey-mad country.

But media reports this week all say Regina’s Saskatchewan Roughriders (one word) will probably veto the Ottawa’s team bringing back its decades-old nickname. That’s their right under a CFL agreement.

“They’ve had exclusive use of that name for 15 years,” Ottawa part-owner Jeff Hunt of the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, which has been awarded the CFL expansion team, told Regina’s Leader-Post.

Historical Note: You may be wondering if both teams were named after Teddy Roosevelt’s famous fighting outfit. Probably not. The Ottawa Rough Riders were named after a group of logrollers in the area’s rivers, and the Roughriders named after a group of Mounties. The RCMP training academy is in Regina.

In a league that is steeped in tradition, people should be more amenable to the resuscitation of the Rough Riders, say some observers.

The Toronto Sun opined about the naming issue: “The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ brand would not be adversely affected by the return of the other Riders, because nobody with at least one active brain cell is going to confuse the two teams. But the new/old club, which is expected to return to the field in 2013, could stand to benefit from a link to its storied past.”

D’oh

Um, this not-very-bright American was confused when, as a young sportswriter in Montreal, I first learned with amazement that there were two teams in the same small league with the same name. In branding- and copyright-obsessed America, this would have never been allowed.

Hunt, who’ll own part of the expansion team, admits it’s “extremely unlikely” the familiar Rough Riders handle will be used, since the Saskatchewan Roughriders retained the right to veto the name as a condition to their approving the expansion franchise.

“The Saskatchewan Roughriders would only support (Ottawa’s return to the league) if they retained veto rights for use of the name, and it seems unlikely they’re going to relinquish their veto,” said a compliant-sounding Hunt. “They believe that, since they’ve had exclusive use of the name for some 15 years, they’ve earned the right to be the only team in the CFL to utilize the name.”

Plus, there have been several CFL stadium upgrades recently (including one in Ottawa), and team owners want to get all the marketing money they can. And trademarks matter these days.

In case you were wondering: Yes, the two “Rough” teams have met in the Grey Cup championship game in the past. Four times, in fact.